OBJECTIVE: To explore the views of Primary Care and homeopathic doctors in the same geographical and population catchment area towards Homeopathy as a discipline and the motives that bring patients to use its services. DESIGN: A qualitative study, using in-depth interviews and a focus group. SETTING: A community of 18,000 inhabitants with a Health Centre and four homeopathic physicians. PARTICIPANTS: The four homeopathic physicians and nine of the ten doctors from the Health Centre.

The aim of this study was to measure the proportion and characteristics of complementary therapy (CT) users among female breast cancer patients receiving conventional treatment. 473 women who had received surgical intervention for breast cancer in the year of diagnosis were sent a questionnaire for completion, and 242 responded. CT had been used by 16.5% after cancer diagnosis, only 8.7% before. The most commonly used CTs were homeopathy, manual healing method, herbalism and acupuncture. The main reason for using CTs was physical distress.

Numerous studies have documented that health care consumers all over the world are spending money out of pocket for alternative therapies and that billions of dollars are spent in the United States alone. In this article, the use of complementary and alternative therapies by women health care consumers is discussed, particularly as this phenomenon relates to women's reproductive health in the United States.

BACKGROUND: This article describes a survey of new clients entering care with nine practicing classical homeopaths in the Los Angeles metropolitan area between January 1994 and July 1995. METHODS: Participants completed a self-administered questionnaire before undergoing diagnosis by the homeopath. Follow-up interviews were conducted by phone 1 month after diagnosis and face to face 4 months after diagnosis, along with a self-administered questionnaire before the final interview. A total of 104 participants entered the study; 77 completed all data collection.

Are cholesterol lowering drugs useful? Do they increase life expectancy? Do third generation oral contraceptives increase the risk of venous thromboembolism? Is there a worldwide decline in semen quality over the last 50 years? Do vitamin supplements improve your child's IQ? Does homeopathy work better than placebo? These questions illustrate some statistical problems and some bias encountered during clinical studies, which can lead to erroneous results. Type I and II errors, surveillance, prescription or publication bias as well as the healthy user effect are described.

The use of alternative treatment along with conventional cancer therapy is very popular. However, little is known about the use of alternative treatment in pediatric oncology. A study to determine which medical and demographic characteristics distinguish users from nonusers was conducted in a pediatric oncology sample of children with different survival perspectives.

CONTEXT: With the public's increasing use of complementary and alternative medicine, medical schools must consider the challenge of educating physicians about these therapies. OBJECTIVES: To document the prevalence, scope, and diversity of medical school education in complementary and alternative therapy topics and to obtain information about the organizational and academic features of these courses. DESIGN: Mail survey and follow-up letter and telephone survey conducted in 1997-1998. PARTICIPANTS: Academic or curriculum deans and faculty at each of the 125 US medical schools.

OBJECTIVE: This review describes the homeopathic analysis of grief and common remedies corresponding to this reaction. Homeopathic descriptions of grief are compared with contemporary psychiatric criteria. DATA SOURCES: Each homeopathic rubric (i.e., symptom) is identified on the basis of a computerized repertory search, grouped according to body systems, and compared with a current set of operational criteria derived from the psychiatric literature. The major homeopathic remedies for grief are identified.

In ecological farming mastitis is the dominating disease in dairy cattle. The regular prophylactic use of antibiotics in farm animals is forbidden, in therapy antibiosis is restricted. A solution of this problem could be a program of systematic homeopathic prophylaxis as well as a standardised homeopathic treatment. The example of chronic catarrhal staph.-aureus-mastitis shows that there is only a certain expectancy of success by homeopathy as well as by any other medication, if the medication is combined with necessary sanitation measures.

Judicious and prolonged use of 'protector' metered dose inhalers of steroid aerosol, sodium cromoglycate, both orally and nasally, and 'reliever' drugs like beta 2-agonists etc can induce a state of controlled asthma in many cases. Continued patient education programme (PEP) in a well-staffed asthma clinic is needed to achieve this state. Various aspects of PEP programme should be discussed during each visit. Presence of superstition, misconceptions, ignorance and strong bias against the use of metered-dose inhalers should be removed during PEP.